MONTEGO BAY, St James — Several councillors who serve in the St James Municipal Corporation on Thursday grabbed the opportunity of having a representative from the National Water Commission (NWC) at their monthly meeting to rattle off a litany of challenges being faced by residents of their respective divisions.

The biggest complaint was the unavailability of water, but there were also issues with leaking pipes, malfunctioning pumps, lack of manpower at pumping stations, and more.

Councillor Anthony Murray (Jamaica Labour Party, Rose Hall Division) raised concern that water woes now appear to be affecting areas in his division that were previously immune to such challenges.

“Lilliput, for example, I never come here and complain about Lilliput, I am now having challenges in Lilliput,” he said.

Murray said it appears the water supply is being turned off at night, with service resuming in the morning, but no official notification had been provided by the NWC.

“I don’t know if they are turning it off or what, but it has not been communicated to us,” he said.

Citing mounting complaints from the Rose Vale area of his division, Murray urged the NWC to find a solution.

For Councillor Michael Allen (People’s National Party, Somerton Division) his concern was the unavailability of water in some communities that are near to a water source at Canaan.

“I can’t understand why Goodwill, a mile away from the plant, don’t have any water,” he lamented.

“They got some about three days ago because they did some regulation, so now Chatham is out of water and there is a part in Goodwill where the school is — no water,” Allen added.

Other councillors who expressed frustration included Kerry Thomas (People’s National Party, Rose Hall Division) who described the water woes as a “crisis”.

Acting Water Production Engineer at the NWC Aubyn Green sought to explain the source of the challenges within the various divisions.

“We are currently in the rainy season, and perennially we normally experience high turbidity levels at many of our facilities. Chief among them is at the Great River Treatment Plant that is currently experiencing a high level of turbidity, this is currently affecting production,” he told the local government representatives.

“Our production level has been reduced to approximately 75 per cent and it is affecting storage levels at Terminal and Appleton Hall. With the lower storage level at these facilities, we have areas such as Norwood, Ocean Ridge, Rose Heights, among others, that are experiencing either low water pressure or no-water complaints,” he said.

Green also pointed to interruptions in the supply from Trelawny, a major water source for the parish of St James.

“To further complicate matters, we have had to reduce the pumping pressure and the flow from the Martha Brae Treatment Plant,” he revealed.

“Now the Martha Brae Treatment Plant and the Great River Treatment Plant work together to supply water delivery to our terminal facilities. This is as a result of the brittleness of the transmission network along that corridor,” Green added.

He pointed to broken pipes on Rose Hall main road in the vicinity of Ironshore and Coral Gardens that have been impacting the network in various ways.

“Due to the reduction in pumping hours, we are unable to get the amount of water from our Martha Brae facility to supplement the Great River Treatment Plant,” said the NWC representative.

However, he said once completed the Western Resilience Pipeline Project will fix all those challenges. Green also referenced the NWC’s plan to replace seven kilometres of pipeline between Vernon’s Drive and Appleton Hall.

“This will reduce non-revenue water and increase supply to Rose Heights, Cornwall Courts, Salt Spring, and those surrounding areas,” he assured.

Green also stressed that these and other solutions will take time.

Councillor Anthony Murray complained of water lockoffs now impacting sections of his Rose Hall Division during Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation.